Local
2014 Gay Games could vault to D.C.
Cleveland startup faces Dec. 15 deadline to hold onto sporting event
Set in Germany, the 2010 Gay Games concluded Sunday. The next event in 2014 is tentatively slated to occur in Cleveland. (Photo courtesy of Gay Games)
Leaders of an international LGBT sports group, meeting last weekend in Germany, reaffirmed their earlier decision to keep the 2014 Gay Games in Cleveland, according to sources familiar with the deliberations.
But the General Assembly of the Federation of Gay Games kept open the option of moving the event to Washington, D.C., if Cleveland fails to meet a set of conditions by Dec. 15, including the creation of a new gay-run organization to produce the games, sources said.
The General Assembly took that action during a closed “in camera” session of its annual meeting Aug. 8, sources said, following the end of the 2010 Gay Games.
That action came 10 months after the FGG selected Cleveland over D.C. to host the 2014 Gay Games and one month after the FGG revoked the license it awarded last year to the Cleveland Synergy Foundation, a non-profit LGBT group, to produce the quadrennial event.
The FGG’s ouster of Cleveland Synergy was reportedly caused by the foundation’s failure to meet its licensing agreement in a number of areas, including financial accountability.
Officials with the Cleveland Synergy Foundation have not returned repeated calls seeking comment. FGG officials have also declined to disclose details as to why they determined Synergy has failed to meet its licensing obligations.
LGBT activists in Cleveland joined city officials there in expressing a strong desire to keep the games in Cleveland and have taken steps to put together a new proposal for producing the 2014 Gay Games. But so far, only non-gay sports groups in that area have emerged as having the capability to produce an event involving thousands of athletes and spectators.
In announcing last week that they planned to keep the games in Cleveland, FGG officials said through a spokesperson that they disagreed with an interpretation of FGG rules by the D.C. LGBT sports group that lost its bid to hold the games in Washington.
Officials with Metropolitan Washington Gaymes, Inc., which was designated the runner-up bidder for the 2014 games, said they believe FGG rules hold that the games should go to the runner up and its host city if the winning bidder fails to fulfill its licensing obligations and responsibilities.
During the General Assembly meeting in Cologne, Germany, FGG officials reportedly said the rules allow the group to keep the games in Cleveland as long as a new entity selected to produce the games meets all of the requirements established for doing so in the original bidding documents.
But one of the conditions imposed on Cleveland, according to sources, is that it must come up with a new LGBT-run 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that exists for the sole purpose of producing the Gay Games.
Another condition is the new entity must be up and running, meet all of the FGG requirements to operate the games and have a signed license agreement with the FGG in place by Dec. 15, 2010, sources said.
They said the FGG General Assembly agreed that if the new Cleveland organization is unable to enter into such a licensing agreement by the designated deadline, FGG would take steps to move the games to D.C., the runner-up city. The decision reportedly is based on the assumption that the D.C. host organization was still interested and capable of producing the 2014 Gay Games.
Vince Micone, president of Metropolitan Washington Gaymes, and Brent Minor, head of Team D.C., one of the Gay Games-affiliated groups that’s part of Washington Metropolitan Gaymes, said last week that their respective groups would be willing to discuss any offer or proposal brought forward by the FGG.
“We’re reluctant to comment because we haven’t received any official communication from anyone,” said Minor on Tuesday.
But he noted that D.C. officials remain supportive of the Gay Games movement and its leadership. He said he’s “certain” that the apparatus that Metropolitan Washington Gaymes assembled last year in its bid for the 2014 games can be put back together in “short order” should the FGG approach D.C. to host the games.
According to one source, another wrinkle over Cleveland Synergy Foundation surfaced at the FGG General Assembly meeting when word came that Cleveland Synergy might be considering filing a lawsuit against the FGG to reverse the decision to revoke its license. The source said FGG officials have lined up pro bono legal counsel to respond to such a lawsuit and are confident their side would prevail.
The same source said representatives of the General Assembly sympathetic to D.C. chose not to introduce a resolution to move the 2014 games to D.C. before giving Cleveland a chance to form a new LGBT host organization because there was little support for such a resolution.
“It would have failed miserably as many Americans and Europeans are of the current mindset that we need to continue the goodwill that was just established by the Cologne games, and a change while the city of Cleveland so enthusiastically wants these games would incur distrust and ill will in the LGBT sports community,” the source said.
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
District of Columbia
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
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